


Say His Name

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post Avengers, Pre-Age of Ultron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5340608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set right after Clint is brought home to his family by Phil and Natasha. Clint can't sleep, and Laura realizes that he doesn't want to be alone with the kids, either. They work through it with a little help from Cooper and the wisdom of the young.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say His Name

Laura woke suddenly, the shadow of a bad dream dancing on the edge of her vision. She blinked and reached for Clint, but he wasn’t there. She sat up and looked toward his antique oak desk, but even that was empty. She glanced at the clock and sighed. It was two-thirty again and the bright, full moon was lighting the bedroom.

She sat up and reached for her robe on the chair next to the bed, listening for Clint’s pacing footsteps downstairs, or the faint rumble of the television in the family room, or the muted conversation between him and Natasha, who always seemed to be awake when Clint was, no matter what time it was. She finally heard Natasha’s soft voice, and it was close enough to hear this time, low and pleading.

Laura moved to the top of the stairs and swallowed thickly at the sight. Clint was on the bottom step in his purple and green flannel sleep pants and a navy blue t-shirt, hunched over. He was gripping his hair with both hands, pulling hard while he rocked back and forth on the step.

“I can’t – I can’t,” he said, and Laura’s heart broke a little more at the cracked sound of his voice.

Natasha looked up at Laura with a sad frown before she rubbed Clint’s shoulders and beckoned to Laura at the same time.

It had been two weeks since Clint came home – was brought home – with Phil and Natasha. Laura had expected him to be in bad shape after the Chitauri fight, and Phil sat with Laura late into the first night they were home explaining what had happened to Clint while Clint curled into Laura’s lap and trembled. He’d given Phil permission to tell the short version of the story, because ‘I don’t want to say that fucker’s name.’

She knew he’d been forced to work for Loki, to do anything he could to help him take over, and that Natasha had knocked Clint out in a fight to get Loki out of his head, instead of killing him like Laura knew she had probably been ordered to do. That’s all she knew, but she knew it was only a shadow of the story because when she looked at Clint she saw a version of him she’d never seen before.

The next morning Phil had found Laura alone in her office and said gently, “He’s scheduled for therapy over Skype, and they want you present for the first few sessions. If that doesn’t go well he might have to come back into the city for a while, but I presume one thing they’ll work on is getting him to say Loki’s name.”

Laura had pulled Phil in for a hug and he’d clung to her longer than usual. He pulled away with a shaky breath and a shrug. “It’s been a really bad couple weeks,” he said.

Phil stayed a week. Natasha stayed two. She ended up sleeping on the floor of Laura and Clint’s room by the third night, and Phil took a turn before he left. No amount of assurance would convince Clint that it was safe for him to sleep in the bed with Laura. No amount of consoling would stop his whimpers after he woke screaming unless Nat or Phil climbed into the bed and told him Laura was safe, that the kids were safe. Once they convinced him to open his eyes and he saw Laura holding his hands, he would settle enough to at least console.

They were all exhausted at the end of the week. Phil didn’t want to leave yet, but Nick needed his help at SHIELD, and Clint insisted that he go.

He had two therapy sessions a day plus the occasional “Clint, here, talk to Sanders,” from Natasha as she pressed a cell phone into his shaking hands. Laura got in the habit of having tea brewing anytime Clint started to get shaky, and one day he sat hunched on the couch after the kids went to bed and wrapped his hands around a cup.

“I killed a lot of people I knew,” he whispered, and it was the first thing he’d told her about what happened beyond Phil’s ‘short version’ of the story.

She sat and rubbed his back and nodded. “But it’s over and you’re here with us now.”

He just sipped his tea. After a few minutes, he turned to her again. “I knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop it.” He said it like it was a milestone, this telling, and as she nodded again he settled down a little, leaned into her side, and she took the cup before it slid out of his hands and sleep took over his body.

She sat on the couch for five hours while he slept soundly for the first time in weeks.

Lila and Cooper knew things were wrong, but they dealt with it in the way of children. Lila tried to get Clint to draw with her and play Old Maid at the kitchen table when his hands got shaky. Cooper dragged Clint out to the front lawn to throw a baseball around for hours, or he pulled puzzle after puzzle out of the cupboard and the three of them dedicated an hour or three to pictures of kittens and cathedrals. Laura noticed that Clint’s hands stopped shaking as the puzzle came together.

She didn’t notice that Clint never did anything with the kids if she or Natasha weren’t around.

“Where’s your Dad?” Laura asked one night as she and Natasha came in with groceries. Nat sat down next to Cooper on the couch to see what he was reading.

“He’s out in the barn,” Cooper said as he showed the cover to Natasha. After a pause, he added, “Like always right now.” He added a sigh for effect, and Laura couldn’t ignore it.

“What do you mean?” she asked, setting down the carton of milk she was holding.

It was Lila who answered. “Daddy always goes outside to the barn when you and Aunty Nat go out together.”

Laura stared at Natasha, who sighed heavily and leaned in to give Cooper a hug.

“Did he say why?” Laura asked Lila.

It was Cooper who answered, sounding much older than nine. “He says that the battle in New York made his brain do some dumb stuff, and he won’t always go out there when you’re gone, but he has to right now. He says we can come get him out there if we need anything, but he doesn’t come in until you come home. And he gives me his phone.”

“What?” Laura said. She suddenly felt nauseous.

“Why did he give you his phone,” Natasha asked.

Cooper shrugged. “He said I’d need to call for help if something bad happened while he was outside, so he gave it to me.”

Lila chimed in, “He said we could call you but we couldn’t play Zombie Dice on it.” She sounded disappointed.

Laura closed her eyes and said to Natasha, “You go get him.”

She was a little angry that he’d leave the kids alone while she was gone, and she was a little angry that he didn’t tell her he wasn’t comfortable being left alone with them, and she was a little angry at herself for not seeing that coming. She was glad the longest she and Nat had been out was an hour. Natasha went outside and it took twenty minutes before Clint came shuffling back inside. Laura sent the kids upstairs to put pajamas on, and Natasha went with them to help.

She and Clint stood in the soft light of the kitchen and uncertainty blanketed the room, reached into every corner.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you it freaked me out when you leave.”

Laura looked at him carefully without answering. She saw his roughly shaven face, like he couldn’t get it smooth – she blamed his shaking hands for that. She saw his eyes, rimmed in red and with dark circles under them, unable to stay focused for long when they were having discussions. She saw the rigid lines of his shoulders and his hands clenching and unclenching at his side.

“Nat said she has to leave soon. She has to go back to work,” Laura said, finally.

He nodded. “I know,” he said, and bit his lip before adding, “I’m wondering if I should go back with her.” His voice cracked at the end, broken and peppered with shards of fear.

Laura sat down at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands and closed her eyes. If he went back with Nat he could have more therapy at SHIELD. He could do things to make himself feel useful to SHIELD, and get his feet back under him. He could learn to feel safe again.

But she didn’t want him to go, and as she looked up to say so, Cooper’s small voice startled both of them.

“Please don’t leave, Dad,” he said softly, like he knew he wasn’t supposed to be joining in, but like the words escaped anyway. He was standing there in his purple footie pajamas and his favorite stuffed yellow dinosaur tucked under his arm, and he was looking with pleading eyes at Clint.

Clint sank to the table bench and pulled Cooper in next to him and held him tight. Cooper’s tiny shoulders shook a little and Laura saw Clint wipe a tear from his son’s cheek and stare at his fingers. “I don’t want to leave, Coop,” he whispered. “I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t, Clint,” Laura said firmly. Clint and Cooper both looked up sharply at her. She looked at Cooper. “Your dad is still sick from after the fight with the aliens, Cooper.”

Cooper nodded sagely. “I know.” He looked up at Clint again. “It’s okay, Dad. You’ll get better.”

Laura smiled at Cooper’s matter-of-fact tone, his pure, childish confidence in Clint. Clint chewed on his top lip and nodded.

“Cooper,” Laura said as she brushed his arm gently with her hand, “We can help Daddy by keeping me close by, which means you and Lila will have to do things like run errands with me instead of staying home with Dad. It means he won’t be able to pick you up from school by himself for a while. Is that okay?”

Cooper nodded and leaned into Clint harder, wrapped his small arms around Clint’s chest. “Dad, guess what?” he said with a sudden grin, the one that reminded Laura so much of Clint.

“What?” Clint replied as he raised an eyebrow.

“I like having Mom around, too. I understand how she makes you feel better.”

Clint smiled and blinked tears out of his eyes as he leaned over and kissed Cooper’s tousled black hair. “Yeah,” he whispered, “She really does. But you know what?”

“What?” Cooper said, the sound getting muffled by Clint’s shirt.

“You make me feel better, too. You’re a big help, kiddo.”

Cooper nodded and Laura and Clint shared a smile.

“Dad, guess what else.”

“What?”

Cooper squirmed so he was looking at Clint and side-eying Laura. “If I have to run errands with Mom, I might be able to convince her to buy us some of those ice cream sandwiches we both like but she never buys.”

Clint laughed, a real, honest laugh, and Laura felt something loosen in her heart at the sound.

Clint put his hands on Cooper’s cheeks and grinned. “You’re pretty smart for a nine year-old, you know that?”

Cooper shrugged and climbed off of Clint’s lap and glanced at Laura. “I get it from Mom,” he said with a smile, and he scurried out of the kitchen as he laughed.

Clint’s “Hey!” overlapped with Laura calling, “Flattery will get you everywhere, young man!”

She looked at Clint and he blew a breath out slowly. “I’ll try and stay,” he said.

“Ice cream sandwiches are a big lure?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Those and some other things.” He sighed and scooted over next to her. “I’m worried about sleep and I’m worried that I won’t be able to help you as much as I should. Nat’s been helping with both of those things.”

She leaned into his shoulder. “Have you talked to Sanders much about sleep?”

“Mmmhmm. He suggested that I use the spare room for a while.”

She blinked. “That. . . actually makes sense.” It did, too. He woke worried sick that she and the kids weren’t safe, but she knew it was because he worried that they weren’t safe from _him_. “If you go to sleep by yourself you won’t worry so much about hurting me.”

Clint nodded. “I’m afraid, Laura,” he said, and wrapped an arm around her before he pressed his face in her hair for a moment.

“I know you are,” she answered, and she left it at that. She loved him more than anyone, but she wasn’t his therapist. “Let Nat leave, and give it a week or two. We’ll see how it goes and then decide again, okay?” She knew enough about life to know that thinking you wouldn’t have to reassess important decisions was naïve.

“Okay,” he replied. After a pause he added, “You’re pretty smart for a –“

She reached up and slapped his cheek lightly. “Finish that and you can sleep in the barn, mister.”

He chuckled and nodded and leaned in to kiss to her lips instead. She closed her eyes as his lips brushed hers, their warmth a familiar balm. She kissed him back, brushed his cheek as she deepened the kiss, and felt something shift between both of them as they settled into a familiar, an oh-so-familiar feeling, skin on skin, connection flaring, the kiss a seal of a promise to try, to not give up yet, to not let that bastard Loki win.

Laura wasn’t sure exactly what happened to Clint, but she could say Loki’s name, and she could prop Clint up for a while, and she could sleep alone and take the kids on errands so Clint wasn’t alone with them, if it meant he started to recover and come back to himself. He’d find his own voice again eventually, and then he’d say Loki’s name with scorn, and he’d reclaim his place with them so they could all move on together.

 

 


End file.
